


Just Like Always

by thedumpdeity



Category: The X-Files, Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Action/Adventure, Canon-Typical Violence, Mild Language, Mystery, Other, Typical Night Vale Weirdness, mulder and scully investigate night vale
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-02-16
Updated: 2015-02-15
Packaged: 2018-03-13 04:58:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,564
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3368696
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thedumpdeity/pseuds/thedumpdeity
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>something rotten is going on in Night Vale, and FBI agents Mulder and Scully might be the only ones who can stop it. how much do you really want to believe?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Just Like Always

Scully was an hour and a half late. ”Of all the days, Scully…” Mulder thought out loud. He flicked another paper football at the trashcan he’d moved to the middle of the room. No dice. Again. He glared at the trashcan and was about to give it the middle finger when his partner finally walked through the door. 

“Scully you’re late,” he said as he virtually leaped from his chair. He grabbed his phone from his desk and as he gave it a few taps he continued: “Frohike picked up this signal last night. It’s a radio broadcast but according to the boys, they shouldn’t have even been able to pick it up given the frequency it was broadcasting at. There was a lot of distortion but they managed to clean a bit of it up and they got…” he gave the phone a final tap and laid it on the desk. “… this.”

A loud crackle of static broke out across the room and a smooth deep voice, slow and warm, slid from the speakers. It sounded a bit like the speaker was underwater but the speech was still clear. “A friendly desert community where the sun is hot, the moon is beautiful, and mysterious lights pass overheard while we all pretend to sleep. Welcome… to Night Vale.” Here the static grew louder quickly to the point where it hurt the agents’ ears. Scully thought for a moment at the end that it sounded less like static and more like a swarm of locusts, thick and dark, filling everything. She could feel the sound behind her eyes, under her teeth.

“Mulder turn it off!” she said, more harshly than intended. He did so and as he did, he noticed her mussed hair and the dark circles under her eyes. Normally Scully didn’t have a hair out of place. Mulder shifted around the desk to move the trashcan. She looked like the last thing she needed this morning was a stubbed toe.

“You ok, Scully? You look like you got in a fight with a werewolf on the way to work.” He poured a cup of coffee into a white styrofoam cup and traded her for her coat, which he put on the rack by the door.

She took a sip and sighed. “Thanks, Mulder. I didn’t get much sleep last night. Bad dreams.” Scully took another sip, and the warmth helped chase the images from her mind. However, when she looked down at her cup, just for a moment she saw a black hood reflected in the strong dark liquid. It was gone as quickly as it came, so she took another drink before she placed the cup on the desk and asked, “So what’s interesting about this? Sounds like one of Frohike’s pals wants some publicity for his new podcast. Any amateur could layer some effects on an audio track.”

Mulder smiled. “Normally I would say the same thing except that I was with them when they received it. Frohike tracked the signal and found out it was coming from New Mexico, out in the desert. But according to all the satellite imagery we could find there’s nothing out there. No towers, no antennae, not even a shack. It’s not much to go on, I know. I have a really strong feeling about this though, Scully. I think we need to go check it out for ourselves.”

“You want me to just fly off into the desert with you on some hunch?” Scully sighed and rolled her eyes.

Mulder grabbed two plane tickets from his desk and threw Scully her coat. “You say that as if this is the first time we’ve done this.”

He certainly had a point there. Scully followed him out the door.

Skinner was in the main lobby talking to a senator. He didn’t appear to be happy about it, and when he saw the two agents, he excused himself and hurried over to talk to them. “Where are you two running off to this time? You weren’t given an assignment and I received no word about opening a new X-File.” He huffed grumpily. “Plus this guy is really getting under my skin I could use some backup over here.”

Mulder patted him on the shoulder and chuckled. “No can do, sir. We’re headed to New Mexico to find the town that doesn’t exist,” he said, and winked as he turned to leave. Skinner looked to Scully for an explanation, but she just shrugged.

“You know what? I don’t give a shit. Do whatever. Call me if you need me.” Skinner shook his head and resignedly walked back to the senator.

The flight was fairly smooth and afterward they got a quick, greasy lunch at the airport bar. Scully didn’t understand how Mulder could still have so much energy after a meal like that; she just didn’t have the constitution for it any more. The blazing heat only made matters worse and by the time they left the airport she was asleep, curled up slightly in the front seat and covered with her jacket. The car had an air conditioner better suited for a meat-packing plant but it was certainly better than the dry, scorched desert air. They travelled in relative silence for an hour or two, the only exceptions being a barely audible and fading pop station on the radio and Mulder’s occasionally whispered accompaniment. He was humming along with Beyoncé and thinking that his eyes might bleed if he didn’t see something besides sand and cactus soon when Scully started screaming.

Mulder swerved, glad the highway was empty as far as the eye could see. He quickly pulled over to see what was wrong with his partner. As he leaned over to wake her, Scully went suddenly quiet and her body became completely rigid. Her eyes flared open, wide, glazed and unseeing. Her head turned slowly, haltingly to face him. The sightless eyes stared through him and he realized she was still asleep. Mulder put a tentative hand on her shoulder and said softly, “Dana? Are you ok?”

He was startled into pulling his hand away when a dry croak rattled from her throat. “It’s happening again. It’s coming back. The light hid within the darkness but now it doesn’t need to hide any more. It’s coming back and… it’s smiling.”

Scully grabbed Mulder by the collar and pulled him close. Her eyes were no longer blank, now they blazed with urgency and fear. “Mulder, we have to warn them. We have to get to Cecil.” She went slack then, and there was no doubt that she had fallen asleep again. Mulder debated over whether or not to wake her but decided it was best if he let her continue to rest. He was shaken however, and turned up the radio a bit as he pulled the car back onto the road. He wanted to write the whole thing off as a bad dream, but he had seen her eyes. There was something in them that frightened him deeply, and he thought for a long moment about turning back. For the first time in a long time, he didn’t want to believe.

Mulder kept driving, regardless. He was intrigued now, and his curiosity had always overcome his fear, for better or for worse. He was more worried about Scully, and the toll this might take on her. She’d been through enough for him, and he wondered if this time he might have taken things to far. A queasy feeling hit his stomach and he knew it wasn’t the cheeseburger. He looked over at her. The jacket had fallen to her lap and Mulder pulled it up around her shoulders again. “Don’t worry, Scully. We’ve got each other’s backs, just like always.”

Another hour over rough desert gravel wasn’t sufficient to wake the sleeping Scully, and repeated nudges by Mulder didn’t seem to do the trick either. The car’s radio could get pretty loud however, and Drake was finally able to get through to her. She fumbled sleepily for her sunglasses and smacked off the radio, growling, “Dammit Mulder you creep. If this ends up being a wild goose chase I’m going to kick your ass and leave you out here.”

Mulder smirked at her and pointed down the road. About a hundred yards away was a quaint and weather-beaten stainless steel signpost, painted with a simple purple and black mural and the words “Welcome To Night Vale” near the bottom. She felt unsettled by it. While there was nothing outwardly unusual about it, Scully realized it looked almost impossibly old. She shuddered, even though the heat was blistering. She cocked her eyebrows, trying to appear skeptical. “Come on Mulder, you know as well as I do anyone could have painted that sign up. I admit though it is well made. You can’t—“

Mulder kept smiling and pointed upwards. As Scully turned her gaze, she saw three bright pulsating lights, radiant and colorful. They hovered about forty feet in the air, never quite staying still but moving slowly, lazily. She gasped audibly, and Mulder laughed and punched the air. “Well what are you waiting for, Scully? Let’s go stir up some trouble!” He virtually skipped backed to the car and blasted the horn a couple times for good measure. She sighed and shook her head.

“Just like always.”

**Author's Note:**

> please leave comments! i'd love to know what needs work and so on. I hope you enjoyed it! I'll definitely be going on with this.


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